the year in books [XII]

This gauntlet covers a slew of American westerns. Mary Russell's Doc (5⭐️)was the best of them all, an excellent retelling of the story of Doc Holliday's life. She doesn't go into much detail about the shoot-out in Tombstone and its fallout, probably because she addresses that in another novel, Epitaph (which is in my queue). Robert Bausch's As Far As The Eye Can See was a quick and delightful read, so it, too, gets 5⭐️. Terry C. Johnston's Crack in the Sky, book three of his nine-book Titus Bass series, chronicles Bass' further adventures in the Rocky Mountains, and it's won 5⭐️. Elmer Kelton's Many A River was, like Bausch's novel, a quick and delightful read (5⭐️), so I was surprised when I didn't find his The Rebels: Sons of Texas to be engaging (3⭐️). Loren D. Estleman's Port Hazard (4⭐️), another entry in his ongoing Page Murdock serial, found the deputy sheriff out in San Francisco. Though it's one of the least-liked of his Murdock series, I found it interesting in how he accurately captures the atmosphere of San Francisco's early days.